Via Technology Review.
Stirling Energy Systems (SES), based in Phoenix, has decreased the complexity and cost of its technology for converting the heat in sunlight into electricity, allowing for high-volume production. It will begin building very large solar-power plants using its equipment as soon as next year.
The company is currently building a 1.5-megawatt, 60-unit demonstration plant that will use the company’s latest design. Stirling expects to finish that project by the end of the year. It also has contracts with two California utilities to supply a total of 800 megawatts of solar power in Southern California. The first of the plants that will supply this power could be built starting the middle of next year, pending government permits and loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
The projects are part of a resurgence in what’s known as solar thermal power. Various solar thermal technologies were developed starting in the 1970s, but a breakdown in government funding and incentives caused them to stall before they reached a scale of production large enough to drive down costs and allow them to compete with conventional sources of electricity. “It was a classic problem with solar. The market support to bring solar to high volume wasn’t there,” says Ian Simington, the chairman of SES and chief executive of the solar division of NTR, a company based in Dublin, Ireland, that bought a controlling share of SES last year.
Recent state mandates and incentives for renewable energy have led to a new push to commercialize the technology. There are over six gigawatts of concentrated solar power under contract in the southwestern United States right now, says Thomas Mancini, program manager for concentrated-solar-power technology at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM. That’s equivalent to about six nuclear-power plants. BrightSource Energy has contracts to provide 2.6 gigawatts of solar power with concentrated solar power (a previous version of this story sited only one of two 1.3 gigawatt contracts), and Solar Millenium has announced a project that would generate nearly one gigawatt of power.
Electricity, Energy, Innovation, Renewable Energy, research, Solar
I came across a really good article (from consulting firm McKinsey and company) about the global state of solar power and its economics. Leave a comment if you want the full paper.
Solar energy is becoming more economically attractive as technologies improve and the cost of electricity generated by fossil fuels rises. By 2020, hundreds of billions of dollars of investment capital will probably boost global solar-generating capacity 20 to 40 times higher than its current level.
As the new sector takes shape, producers of solar components must drive their costs down, utilities must place big bets despite enormous technological uncertainty, and regulators must phase out subsidies with care. The actions these players take will determine the solar sector’s scale, structure, and performance for years to come.
Economics, Energy, Renewable Energy, research, Solar
This is a topic which receives a lot of attention and I have seen pages and pages of discussions. This is also something which holds a lot of promise for developing countries. Read more from Technoloy Review about the company Waste Management.
Waste gasification, a process for converting garbage into fuel and electricity without incinerating it, may be a step closer to large-scale commercialization. Last week, Houston’s Waste Management, a major garbage-collection and -disposal company, announced a joint venture with InEnTec, a startup based in Richland, WA, to commercialize InEnTec’s plasma-gasification technology.
InEnTec’s technology, originally developed at MIT and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in Richland, WA, uses a multiple high-temperature processes–including subjecting garbage to plasma arcs–to break down organic materials into syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Syngas can either be directly burned in gas turbines to produce electricity, or it can be converted into other fuels, including gasoline and ethanol. Metals and other inorganic materials in garbage can be isolated and recycled. The combination of high temperatures and an oxygen-poor environment that prevents the garbage from catching fire eliminates the production of dioxins and furans, two toxic chemicals produced during incineration.
Clean Technology, Energy, Environment, Green, Renewable Energy
Skyline Solar is a startup that has developed a cheaper way to harvest energy from the sun. Here’s how it works: the company’s solar panels concentrate sunlight onto a small area, reducing the amount of expensive semiconductor material needed to generate electricity.
The technology will bring the cost of solar power in line with the average cost of electricity, at least in sunny areas, says Ben Eiref, Skyline Solar’s director of product management. Currently, solar power can be far more expensive than electricity from conventional sources; many governments have resorted to subsidies to increase its use.
Via: Technology Review
Clean Technology, Energy, Environment, Innovation, Renewable Energy, Solar
The continuing economic recession in the US and overall around the globe has impacted a number of large solar and biofuels projects. However venture capitalists are increasingly interested in smaller ventures and most of the investments are in this area. There are investors around the world are interested in ventures which require little in the way of expensive equipment and facilities, or those that have managed to attract foreign investment. Those were some of the conclusions of clean-tech investors who gathered at this week’s GoingGreen East conference in Boston.
As the credit markets have tightened, many capital-intensive projects have stalled. For example, OptiSolar, a company based in Hayward, CA, has sold planned solar-farm projects because it couldn’t raise money to expand manufacturing. Corn-ethanol plants are being shut down and some sold in bankruptcy proceedings for a fraction of their value. Meanwhile, some next-generation biofuels companies, such as Mascoma, based in Boston, have put plans for new plants on hold.
Projects requiring hundreds of millions of dollars have fallen from favor, says Jim Matheson, a general partner at Flagship Ventures. Don Wood, managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, says that his firm is turning to businesses that require smaller plants, such as those that desalinate water and cost only $10 million.
Perhaps the biggest winners will be companies with technologies to improve energy efficiency. Wood says that in the coming years, “efficiency is where you’ll get the highest marginal return on investment,” in large part because costs are low. Some such ventures take advantage of cheap sensors, communications hardware, and software packages to monitor and control energy use both in buildings and on the electricity grid, says Chuck McDermott, a general partner at Rockport Capital. He says that sensors are cheap enough now that they can be distributed throughout a building, even in the ductwork. A pair of sensors on each side of an air filter in a heating system can detect when the filter needs to be changed to save energy. Sensors and controls on appliances will allow homeowners and utilities to reduce energy use.
Via Technology Review.
Clean Technology, Energy, Green, Investment, Renewable Energy
VC
With the recent global economic recession, green technology spending and development has taken a hit. But the stimulus spending plan can bring spending on green and clean technology back. The question is that how can Pakistan become part of this push and develop some technology and expertise to benefit with local situation and also as a service provider. MSNBC reports that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009–the stimulus package provides about $80 billion altogether for renewable energy, energy efficiency, mass transit, updating the electrical grid and research. The hope is that investing in solar power and other forms of renewable energy will create jobs, help businesses grow, make our economy more productive, and create a cleaner world for the future.
Excerpts:
The package helps bring clean energy businesses to the forefront by using tax incentives, bonds, grants and loan guarantees. Two measures that will help solar are the grants and loan guarantees for renewable energy. Tax credits are great when you’re making money, but many investors aren’t profiting in the current economy, dampening appetites for tax credits. The stimulus allows those installing solar power to apply for a cash grant instead of a tax credit and get the money back in 60 days. These grants will bring investors back into solar and wind, ensuring strong growth.
The stimulus also provides $6 billion in loan guarantees that will help solar energy grow by making more credit available. Solar energy is a low-risk investment, about as safe as they come. If you put solar panels on a roof, the sun produces power, which in turn makes money. Still, credit has gotten so tight that even safe investments like solar can’t get credit.
“A solar power system generating electricity has a forecastable income stream over the next 30 years,” says Lyndon Rive, CEO of SolarCity, a Foster City, Calif.-based solar installer. “But it’s hard to get credit for these systems. By backing up loans, the government gets lenders to start lending again, which leads to more systems being installed, more jobs and more businesses.”
Other measures to support renewable energy and energy efficiency are also being developed, like on-bill financing in California. On-bill financing of energy efficiency projects will help businesses fund energy efficiency improvements that are paid back through their utility bills, helping them save money overall. Cities in California and other parts of the country are creating solar power and energy efficiency funding for homeowners, who pay back the money over many years through their property taxes. The SBA has a little-publicized 7a loan program to fund energy efficiency projects. The more innovative funding for clean energy and green building that’s available, the more rapidly the field will grow and help the economy.
Clean Technology, Energy, Green, Policy, Renewable Energy, Solar
Air Commodore (Retd) Azfar A. Khan has written another post about renewable energy in Pakistan here at ATP. I have written about Wind energy projects in Pakistan. Azfar Khan presents views and evidence on how to make wind energy a local indigenous solution:
During one of my recent lectures on Wind Energy in one of the universities of the country, the same question was posed by a participant, “If we go for the wind energy option, we would be needing hundreds of wind turbines in order to make up for the shortfall of electricity. Why can’t we manufacture these turbines ourselves indigenously?” I replied, “Yes, we can, if there’s a will!” I further explained that we can’t expect the foreign manufacturers to provide these turbines to us as and when we need them due to the long lead time involved.
During my brief survey of the country’s existing manufacturing facilities, I got convinced that all the parts and components of the wind turbine could be easily manufactured indigenously.
Energy, Green, Pakistan, Renewable Energy, Wind
Technology Review magazine writes about a new cheaper type of solcar concentrator. Morgan Solar’s high-precision optic–part acrylic and part glass–is molded so that light is trapped and bounces toward its center. A secondary glass optic concentrates the light to 1,000 suns and directs it to a tiny, high-efficiency solar cell. The low-profile design promises to reduce the cost of manufacturing and transportation. Solar concentrators have emerged in recent years as a way to intensify the amount of sunlight hitting solar cells, which are the most expensive part of solar panels. To make solar power more affordable, engineers have sought to use less solar-cell material by concentrating sunlight onto much smaller spaces.
The acrylic component–called a Light-Guide Solar Optic (LSO)–is a new type of solar concentrator that could significantly lower the cost of generating electricity from the sun. Unlike existing designs, there’s no need for mirrors, complex optics, or chemicals to trap and manipulate the light. “It’s pure geometric optics,” says Morgan, director of business development at Toronto-based Morgan Solar.
But this approach has its own challenges. Most concentrators tend to be complex systems that use special lenses, curved mirrors, and other optical components with a “nonzero” focal length. This means that there must be enough distance–an air gap–between the solar cell and the optic to properly focus the light. As a result, concentrator-based systems are usually packaged within bulky enclosures, with enough depth to accommodate the focal length and protect all components during shipping. This means higher material and assembly costs and more expensive shipping.
Clean Technology, Energy, Renewable Energy, Solar
All Things Pakistan has this interesting post about solar energy potential in Pakistan.
A practical example of the use of solar energy could be seen in some villages of Pakistan where each house has been provided with a solar panel that’s sufficient to run an electric fan and two energy saving bulbs. Prior to this arrangement, the whole village used to be plunged in pitch dark during night. One such example is the village with the name of Narian Khorian, some 50 kilometers away from Islamabad, where 100 solar panels have been installed by a local firm, free of cost, to promote the use of solar energy among the masses. Through these panels, the residents of 100 households are enjoying light and fan facilities. Had these panels not been installed, the people living in this area wouldn’t have even dreamt of getting this facility for decades as the provision of electricity from the national grid was a far cry due to the difficult terrain and high expenses involved.
A layman would normally be interested in knowing as to how electricity could be produced using energy from the sun. Simply put, it can be said that the basic item required to generate this electricity is a solar cell, approximately 2 inches x 1/2 inch in dimension. These cells may be available in other dimensions as well. Some 80 to 100 or even more such cells are pasted on a tampered glass sheet whose dimensions are generally 1.5 feet x 4 feet. The glass sheet with cells pasted on it and inter-connected, is called a solar panel. The light from the sun is used to generate electricity through these cells. It may be clarified that it’s the sun’s light and not its heat that produces electricity. The solar cells are called photovoltaics (PV); the word Photo meaning light and voltaics electricity. The life of a solar panel is approximately 20 to 25 years!
To give you an example of the use of solar energy, you must have noticed solar panels installed on poles along with the telephone booths on your left hand side while commuting on the Motorway. Each of these telephones is being powered by this panel. A battery is installed beneath each solar panel to store energy for keeping the telephone in operation during night when there’s no sun light. It’s a stand-alone system, entirely powered by solar energy. During emergency, the commuters make use of these telephones and call for help.
Energy, Renewable Energy, Solar
Masdar has been in the news because of the ambitious work being done there to create a zero-emission zero-carbon footprint city. There are a number of top institutions working there, inclduing MIT and IBM. Time magazine ran a story on Masdar which is worth sharing.
Abu Dhabi is the last place you might expect to find the future of environmentalism. The wealthy capital of the United Arab Emirates is the world’s eighth biggest producer of petroleum. But the leaders of Abu Dhabi know–perhaps better than most–that the oil won’t last forever, so they have embarked on the Masdar Initiative, a multibillion-dollar push to establish the emirate as a center for clean-technology development and innovation. Those plans include Masdar City, designed by British architect Norman Foster, as well as a $250 million clean-tech investment fund and an energy-engineering school linked with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If it all works, this desert emirate could become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy and a living model for the way technological innovation could defuse the threat of climate change. “This is really a very powerful image,” says Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It clearly shows that a country that has no immediate economic need to diversify its energy production is willing and able to do so.”
Abu Dhabi’s leadership is all the more necessary at a moment when once vibrant green businesses are flagging, thanks in part to the plummeting price of oil. In the U.S. and Europe, new wind- and solar-power installations are slowing, energy start-ups are starving for funds and some green companies are laying off workers. But it’s still full speed ahead in Abu Dhabi, where last month’s World Future Energy Summit (WFES) attracted more than 16,000 visitors and companies that ranged from General Motors to modest Chinese solar manufacturers. And with a new Administration in Washington struggling to keep its own ambitious green agenda on track, Abu Dhabi kept the momentum going at WFES by announcing that at least 7% of its electricity would come from renewable sources by 2020, up from nothing today. Nor, said Masdar officials, would the recession have a major impact on the emirate’s plans, announced last year, to invest $15 billion in clean energy–an amount equal to what President Barack Obama has suggested spending annually for the entire U.S. “We are looking beyond the current financial crisis,” says Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Masdar’s CEO. “But all our projects are still proceeding.”
Clean Technology, Energy, Environment, Renewable Energy, Solar
